Wladimir Not To Face Haye or Arreola: Dimitrenko Could Be Replacement

By Chris Williams: First of all, there’s good news and bad news about Wladimir Klitschko. The good part is that we won’t have to hear about the drama of his tiresome negotiating with David Haye, because that fight is pretty much dead in the water now. What’s bad is that Wladimir’s replacement, the knockout artist Chris Arreola, won’t be able to step in as a replacement opponent for Wladimir because he’s scheduled to fight journeyman Jameel McCline on April 11th.

Another two options for Wladimir could be Alexander Povetkin or Alexander Dimitrenko. Povetkin, however, is already scheduled to fight Jason Estrada in April, so it doesn’t look as if he will be available. Dimitrenko (29-0, 19 KOs) might work out perfectly.

At 6’7″, from Ukraine like Wladimir, Dimitrenko has the size, athletic ability and movement that could cause big potential problems for Wladimir. Dimitrenko may not be the biggest of punchers, but with his high work rate he’ll likely be able to hit Wladimir enough to possibly take him out.

The one problem with this fight is that Dimitrenko is an unknown for American audiences, who have never seen him fight before. Additionally, Dimitrenko up to now has faced mostly soft B-level opposition during his eight year career. Indeed, his German handlers have been treating him with kid gloves putting him in with opposition designed to make him look good.

In doing so, it appears that they’ve partially stunted Dimitrenko’s career in my view, because he should have been fighting much better opposition a long time ago. In facing Wladimir, Dimitrenko will be making a huge leap up in competition and it may turn out to be too big of a step up. However, I think he’s a better fighter than Haye and will give Wladimir a much better fight.

Dimitrenko may be inexperienced, but he’s a legitimate heavyweight and not a pumped up one, and he’s faced much more extensive heavyweight competition in comparison to the pathetic two fighters that Haye has faced. Dimitrenko has beaten Timo Hoffmann and Luan Krasniqi in the past year, both of whom I consider better than Monte Barrett, a fighter that Haye recently beat but struggled slightly against.

Areola would have been the ideal opponent for Wladimir, mainly because of Arreola’s heavy pressure, big 6’4” frame and his knockout power in each hand. Though he’s somewhat fat at 258, Arreola would have probably came into a fight with Wladimir in the low 240s and would have been a real threat to him.

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